Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and, in particular, to a semiconductor device that replaces a defective memory cell with a redundant memory cell.
Description of Related Art
A semiconductor device, such as a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) or the like, is provided with a fuse element that holds address information of a defective memory cell. The address information of a defective memory cell held in the fuse element is compared with an input address, and a determination is made whether or not the memory cell indicated by the input address is a defective memory cell. If the memory cell indicated by the input address is a defective memory cell, the corresponding address may be saved by switching the access to a redundant memory cell.
In recent years, a fuse element such as an anti-fuse element or the like that is electrically programmable has been used as the fuse element for holding the address information of a defective memory cell. By using the anti-fuse element, it becomes possible to also save an address of a defective memory cell occurred even after a packaging process (Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2010-277662).